Friday, December 31, 2010

Al Qaeda has published an online bomb-making manual for aspiring shahids. It offers instructions on how to manufacture explosives from simple household ingredients, aimed at the frugal mujahid with limited funds but a lot of dedication.

In other news, a man in Ottawa robbed a bank while wearing a burqa. Police are certain that the robber was not a lady, because he demanded money from the teller in a “masculine voice”.

Thanks to 4symbols, C. Cantoni, Caroline Glick, DF, Gaia, Insubria, JP, Vlad Tepes, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.

Commenters are advised to leave their comments at this post (rather than with the news articles) so that they are more easily accessible.

Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. We check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.

I’ve posted these song lyrics in the past, but they’re always appropriate for New Year’s Eve, so here they are again.

The return appearance of 1939 has been imminent for at least four or five years. Every December 31st makes me wonder if the coming year will see the beginning of what must surely come, but every year we manage to put it off a bit longer.

And every year we come a little closer. The Sudetenland has been partitioned (that’s Kosovo). How soon will annexation come?

Armaments are being assembled, not just by Iran and North Korea, but by hundreds of sub-state actors whose arsenals grow ever more lethal.

The belligerent dictator makes increasingly shrill demands, and is explicit in his genocidal goals, even if the Western democracies prefer to look the other way and pretend he doesn’t really mean it.

So 1939 will get here soon enough. Let’s pour the champagne one more time and strike up the band for another dance, while dancing is still possible.

The song below is from the album Between the Wars (1995):

Laughing into 1939by Al Stewart

Party hat and satin dressSilver paper curled in her long black hairTapping one small elegant shoe in timeOh, the way she plays with themSmile at one, then dance with anotherPretty soon they’re forming up a lineAnd she’s laughing, laughing into 1939Oh, laughing, laughing into 1939

Oh, the party draws them inIt breathes and movesTo a life its ownIn its arms it’s gathering all timeFrom the dark he watches herMoving in and out of the bobbing crowdIf she even notices, she gives no signAnd she’s laughing, laughing into 1939Oh, laughing, laughing into 1939

“Is it not obvious to anyone with the ability still to think that, if our overlords are deliberately pursuing policies designed to reduce the population of Group A whilst massively increasing the population of Group B, they have an agenda?”

The mission of Gates of Vienna is to resist to the Islamization of the West.

As is often pointed out — not least by the proprietors of this blog — the real enemy is not Islam, but the neo-Marxists who control the political systems, major charitable organizations, media outlets, and academic institutions throughout the Western democracies. Islam would not be a problem if we had not already been traduced by our political and cultural leaders.

Ordinary people in the West are just now beginning to wake up to what has been done to them. They are discovering that they have been lied to, disempowered, disenfranchised, and trapped in a soft-totalitarian welfare state. The end game of all this is their disappearance: they are being systematically replaced by Third World immigrants who are substantially less educated, less intelligent, cheaper to hire, and more easy to manipulate — or so it is hoped.

Sarah Maid of Albion has taken a look at what is happening, and makes a compelling case that none of it is by accident. Today she published the first part of a new essay, Genocide by Stealth. The beginning of her article is excerpted below:

If one were to set out to destroy a race or ethnic group, history offers a selection of options as to how this can be achieved.

You can starve them to death in their millions, as Stalin did, and as Lenin had before him. You can force them to march through the desert until they drop dead through hunger and exhaustion as was the Turks’ preferred method of dispatching some one and a half million Armenians, whilst the world was distracted by the first World War. Alternatively if you wish to speed up the process you can shoot them, bomb them, gas them as Saddam Hussein did to the Kurds, or merely hack them to bits with machetes, by which means the Rwandans slaughtered 800,000 people in a mere 100 days during 1994.

The problem with all those tried and tested means of eradicating large groups of people, is that it is almost impossible to hide what you have done from a world community, which, in the main, considers most forms of genocide to be morally unacceptable and a breach of international law.

The exception, of course, is the ANC government in South Africa, who have, so far quite effectively, managed to portray the racially motivated slaughter of members of an ethnic minority as being merely “crime related”, painting repeated acts of genocide as an unending series of “botched burglaries” or multiple “car-jackings gone wrong”. However, their success in hiding their own brand of blood stained ethnic cleansing, has been dependant upon the very special set of circumstances relating to South Africa, and, crucially, upon an outside world not wishing to know the truth.

As such the South African model is unlikely to translate as successfully beyond the dark continent’s southern region, and the violent slaughter of a selected ethnic group in any other part of the world, particularly the West, would be less easy to conceal.

However, although there is effectively only one word for genocide, it can come in many forms. To commit genocide, it is not always necessary to perpetrate acts of violence, or indeed murder. There are many definitions of genocide, all equally effective, albeit not all as speedy as the ones chosen in Rwanda.

If one was prepared to take time and if one was sufficiently ideologically committed to embark upon a genocidal enterprise, the conclusion of which one might personally not live to see, then it is entirely possible to achieve the gradual genocide by stealth of a vast target group without the perpetrators ever having to reveal their blood stained hands.

One need only create the conditions in which the target group will cooperate with its own destruction, and, with any luck, not awake to what is happening until too late.

In the first week of December, our Austrian correspondent Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff was part of a delegation from the European Counterjihad, including members of the “New Right” nationalist parties, who visited Israel. Her report is below.

This travelogue about an unforgettable visit to Israel is based on my own observations and thoughts as well as other reports such as those by Paul Weston and Brian of London. This is due to the fact that I was busy translating for most of the three days on the road and thus had little or no time to reflect on what I heard.

It is a sad and unfortunate fact that in Austria anti-Semitism is still a part of everyday life. More than sixty-five years have passed since the end of World War II and the Holocaust, which killed literally countless people, most of them Jews from all over Europe. It is, however, also a sad fact that despite more than questionable legal provisions imposed by European Union, this anti-Semitism has not diminished or even disappeared, but rather has increased.

I firmly believe that one key to understanding the misnamed “Arab-Israeli conflict” and this inexcusable presence of anti-Semitism in Europe lies in a thorough understanding of the holy book of Islam, which since the 7th century has openly promoted Jew-hatred. It is also necessary to be aware of a sinister project called Eurabia, which, according to its foremost authority, Bat Ye’or,

represents a geo-political reality envisaged in 1973 through a system of informal alliances between, on the one hand, the nine countries of the European Community (EC) which, enlarged, became the European Union (EU) in 1992 and on the other hand, the Mediterranean Arab countries. […]

The field of Euro-Arab collaboration covered every domain: from economy and policy to immigration. In foreign policy, it backed anti-Americanism, anti-Zionism and Israel’s delegitimization; the promotion of the PLO and Arafat; a Euro-Arab associative diplomacy in international forums; and NGO collaboration. […]

[The Euro-Arab Palestinian cult that I often refer to] means precisely this Palestinian centrality that’s promoted in Europe as a key to world peace. However, the Euro-Arab Palestinian cult goes much deeper than a political tool used for a Euro-Arab Partnership policy against America and Israel. It is linked to theological currents of Judeophobia and a replacement theology based on the Palestinization of the Bible and the rejection of its Jewish roots in order to delegitimize Israel’s history and rights on its land. The Euro-Arab Palestinian cult symbolized the redemption of Christianity and Islam and their reconciliation on the ashes of Israel, the work of Satan — a belief propagated by the media’s continuous demonization of Israel, and Palestinian victimization. This cult brings together neo-Nazis, Judeophobes, anti-Americans, communists and jihadists. It is a revival of Nazi anti-Jewish and anti-Christian trends, particularly in its hatred of Christian Bible believers and America, the country that was determinant in the defeat of Nazism and Communism. In the 1930-40s, the Nazis had strong links with Palestinians, and those sympathies and alliances continued throughout the years after World War II, thriving in the Euro-Arab Palestinian cult that submerged Western Europe under the umbrella of the gigantic Euro-Arab Dialogue apparatus.

Although the vast majority of Europeans today are not Anti-Semitic or anti-Israeli, they are immersed in a culture of demonization of Israel, fomented by a European political entity in which nearly everything that is written and said on the Middle East conveys this anti-Israeli mentality. We can recognize in this contemporary phenomenon some aspects of the system of political, cultural, and moral conditioning that led to the Shoah. Reactivated during the past four decades, this Judeophobic conditioning, indirectly, and almost subliminally, is being implemented by the willing heirs of the genocidal fathers. They transmit and spread this Anti-Semitism in a new political and ideological construction, different from Nazism: the Euro-Arab war for the delegitimization and destruction of Israel. […]

A death sentence for blaspheming Mohammed was recently handed down in Pakistan against a Christian woman, Asia Bibi. This barbaric act has drawn condemnation from all over the world, drawing unwelcome attention to Islamic law in action.

The Pakistani government says it has no plans to change the blasphemy law, but the citizens of Pakistan are not taking any chances: they filled the streets today to protest any possible relaxation of the penalties for blasphemy.

Swedish state TV has announced a new TV series about anti-Semitism in Sweden. The report below from Aftonbladet does not mention whether Muslim Jew-haters are featured in the series, but given the current politically correct climate in the Swedish media, it seems unlikely.

Many thanks to our Swedish correspondent Freedom Fighter for the translation:

New Swedish TV series highlights anti-Semitism

Alexandra Rapaport on the new Swedish TV series ‘Drottningoffret’

For Alexandra, the making of the series was sad and painful because of her Jewish background. Alexandra Rapaport herself has Jewish ancestry. Her father escaped from Poland during World War II and from the Holocaust.

The making of the series aroused strong feelings in the actress.

“It’s very painful,” she says.

In the series “Drottningoffret”, the Jewess and head of Sweden’s Social Democrat Party Elizabeth Meyer (played by Suzanne Reuter) is threatened by an anti-Semitic terror network.

She lives under constant bodyguard protection because of her Jewish background while she is standing as candidate for Prime Minister.

“Moved to Israel”

Co-star Alexandra Rapaport has Jewish ancestry; her father escaped from Poland during World War II. Her mother is Catholic.

“I have a half brother who moved to Israel and lives life there as a Jew,” she says.

Her father’s escape is a sensitive area, and Alex is reluctant to go in and talk too much about it.

Geert Wilders announced today that he plans to publish a new book early in 2011. Our Flemish correspondent VH has translated an article for the occasion from De Telegraaf:

Wilders will publish book on Islam

[December 31, 2010] PVV leader Geert Wilders wants to publish a book about his views on Islam during the first half of next year. So he says in an interview published today, Friday, in the printed special edition of the Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf.

“The book is especially for the U.S. market [English language market], and is about how we would be better able to fight Islamization worldwide. We can do a lot in the Netherlands, but we also want to give an international message to the Arab world, that Islamization is being firmly counterattacked by a party that has a lot to say here,” Wilders says in the newspaper.

In 2005, the PVV leader also published a book. This was a short autobiography, titled “Kies voor vrijheid” [Choose Freedom].

VH notes that on April 19, 2005 the first edition of Wilders’ book Choose Freedom was made available in bookstores. Here is a quote from Martin Bosma’s book The Pseudo-Elite of the Counterfeiters concerning the event (pp. 33-34), also translated by VH:

A small publisher approaches us for a book. An fine opportunity. We spend whole weekends scraping material together for it. The publisher wants to get the book on the market, but on the condition that he will remain anonymous. He is afraid of the consequences. Thus, the Group Wilders becomes the official publisher. Many bookstores do not want us for a book-signing session. The security argument is not mentioned often then. What it comes down to is that they find Wilders too vulgar. Hylco Wijnants, director of bookstore Scheltema in Amsterdam: “Look, if he had written a book about which all of us here in the store would have said: […] we find that opinion very important […] we would certainly have cared less about security.”

Book-signing sessions are hell, because they require an overdose of security measures. With the bookshop Paagman in The Hague, we are very much welcome. The DKDB [Royal Dutch Private Security Service] turns the bookstore into a fortress. When walking to it, I notice how much appeal our voice has already had. People are queuing far around the corner; some have been there for hours.

Thursday, December 30, 2010

A terrorist bomb exploded in front of a court building in Athens, doing damage to buildings and cars. Although no one claimed responsibility for the explosion, it was obviously not the work of Muslims, because a warning was phoned in to a TV station before the explosion, allowing evacuation of nearby buildings and preventing injuries. Anarchists or communists are the most likely suspects, just as in previous bombings in Greece.

In other news, the Chinese have effectively outlawed skype by banning internet phone calls. Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube are already illegal in China.

Thanks to C. Cantoni, CSP, DF, Gaia, Insubria, JD, KGS, Kitman, Nilk, TV, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.

Commenters are advised to leave their comments at this post (rather than with the news articles) so that they are more easily accessible.

Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. We check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.

Gandalf (The Younger) is the French anti-sharia activist who blogs at Vérité, Valeurs & Démocratie (Truth, Values, & Democracy) and founded the Alliance to Stop Sharia. He points out that each new year is labeled “The Year of [Something]”, where “Something” is usually a trendy politically correct issue, such as equal pay for women or the welfare of baby polar bears.

He was inspired to designate 2011 as the year of something different, and christened the coming new year as “L’année de la vérité sur l’islam” — The Year of Truth About Islam. In partnership with Aeneas of the International Civil Liberties Alliance, Gandalf launched his initiative at the ICLA website in English and French:

2011 Year of the truth about Islam

Islam today is a politico-religious system based on the principle of slavery.

The goal of Islamic ideology, as depicted in its fundamental texts, is to enforce, willingly or not, Sharia law upon Humanity.

Sharia law contains the obligation of Jihad, to wage it or to support those who do it, militarily, politically, culturally, socially, and economically.

Sharia law violates Human Rights and the principles of Democracy, it abolishes the right to life, and it threatens the physical integrity and right to property of those who refuse to submit.

Update: A reader’s question prompted me to collect links to as many articles on this case as I could find in the news feed archives. I’ve put them at the bottom of this post.

The video below is a report by an American homeschooling activist talking about the plight of a Swedish family whose young son was removed by the state because his parents chose to homeschool him.

The parents have not been charged with a crime. They are only allowed to see their son on rare occasions. They were denied the right to hire their own attorney, but were forced to accept a state-appointed defender. Additional excruciating details are discussed in the video.

If there is a distinction between Sweden and a fully totalitarian state, it’s difficult for an outsider like me to discern. It’s true that there are no prison camps or firing squads for dissenters — but, in a way, that makes the situation even more terrifying. Sweden has managed to establish quiet, insidious, total control of its citizens without violence, without jackboots in the public squares, and with scarcely any visible public protest.

This has its advantages and disadvantages. One of the disadvantages is that we have been dismissed as “Euro-Trash”, and are therefore not worth reading in the USA. Furthermore, we’d have a much larger audience if we focused more on American politics.

On the plus side: we can look at our own country from a slightly different perspective. By perching on a virtual Atlantic Wall and peering westward, sometimes we get to see American foreign policy from the standpoint of its beneficiaries — and its victims. It gives us a clearer overview.

Take, for example, the latest terror arrests in Denmark and Sweden. As I reported reported yesterday, four “Swedes” and a “Dane” were arrested for planning a massive attack on the Jyllands-Posten building in Copenhagen as revenge for the Mohammed cartoons. They intended to make their operation a reprise of Mumbai, with as many innocent casualties as possible.

The plan was larger and more ambitious than previous Motoon revenge plots, but it was not different in kind. As Dymphna reported last year, the plot against Kurt Westergaard and Flemming Rose in October 2009 was designed as a mass attack on Jyllands-Posten’s offices. Last year’s version was part of a conspiracy that extended back to the Pakistani terror group Lashkar-e-Taiba, and involved terrorists in Canada and the United States, including David Headley. Yesterday’s plot may have similar connections; it’s too early to tell.

The terror plot in Denmark assumes a wider significance when juxtaposed with a leaked American diplomatic cable, which coincidentally was also reported yesterday at Islam in Europe. Readers should consult Esther’s entire post for the details on the WikiLeaks revelations, but the gist is this:

The United States government, through ambassador James P. Cain, pressured the Danish government to force Jyllands-Posten not to reprint the Motoons on the first anniversary of their publication. The Danish government responded by basically telling us to buzz off, that they were not in the business of telling their newspapers what to print or not print. So the ambassador contacted the newspaper directly, and spoke to its editor-in-chief.

As it happened, the paper had already decided — independent of any American or Danish government pressure — not to reprint the cartoons. Although Ambassador Cain was pleased, he reported back to Washington on what he considered the unfortunate aspects of the affair:

Wednesday, December 29, 2010

The United States military has acknowledged that it cannot prevent jihad fighters from crossing the porous border from Pakistan into Afghanistan. The mountainous terrain and collusion from the local populace make it impossible for NATO to enforce the border. At the minimum, real cooperation would required from Pakistan in order for the influx of Taliban fighters to be cut back.

In other news, financial analysts say that Italy’s debt level is approaching the danger zone, and the country may face a similar crisis to the one that hit Greece and Ireland, and now also faces Portugal and Spain.

Commenters are advised to leave their comments at this post (rather than with the news articles) so that they are more easily accessible.

Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. We check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.

This is what you might call a Counterjihad video for beginners. It’s a short introductory film about jihad, designed for an Australian audience, and does a good job of laying out the basics.

The beginning of it is “old material” as far as regular Gates of Vienna readers are concerned. But watch it through to the grueling audio segment from a call-in radio show near the end — Australian readers may want to send this to their friends who don’t “get it” yet.

WARNING: some of the images use in this video — particularly those from the Bali bombing — are graphic, and may be disturbing for sensitive people:

According to various media reports, the intention of the would-be Copenhagen Motoon mujahideen was to stage a Mumbai-style attack. They planned storm the Jyllands-Posten building and kill as many people as possible before the police took them out.

The latest reports say that only four were “Swedes”; the other was a “Dane”. The Swedish and Danish intelligence services had been following the plot for a long time, and allowed it to mature to the point where the evidence would be sufficient to guarantee convictions on terrorism charges.

Below are several news articles from various MSM sources about the foiled attack, followed by an interesting parallel story that fits right in with today’s news.

First, from the Associated Press (notice the use of the word “Prophet” in the headline):

5 Arrested in Plot to Attack Prophet Cartoon Paper

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) -- Police in Denmark and Sweden halted an imminent terrorist attack Wednesday by arresting five men who planned to shoot as many people as possible in a building housing the newsroom of a paper that published cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, officials said.

Denmark’s intelligence service said that after months of surveillance it arrested four men in two raids in suburbs of the capital, Copenhagen, and seized a submachine gun, a silencer and ammunition. Swedish police said they arrested a 37-year-old Swedish citizen of Tunisian origin living in Stockholm.

“An imminent terror attack has been foiled,” said Jakob Scharf, head of the Danish Security and Intelligence Service, or PET. He described some the suspects as “militant Islamists with relations to international terror networks” and said that more arrests were possible.

PET said it seized a 44-year-old Tunisian, a 29-year-old Lebanese-born man and a 30-year-old who were living in Sweden and had entered Denmark late Tuesday or early Wednesday. The fourth person detained was a 26-year-old Iraqi asylum-seeker living in Copenhagen.

[…]

Danish and Swedish police, who appeared at a joint new conference with Loekke Rasmussen in Copenhagen, said they had been tailing the suspects for several months.

Anders Danielsson, the head of Sweden’s security police, said they had followed a car rented by the suspects from Stockholm to the Danish border.

“We knew that there were weapons in the car,” he said.

Zubair Butt Hussain, a spokesman for the Muslim Council of Denmark, called the plan “extremely worrying.”

The organization “absolutely condemns any act of terrorism regardless of the motives and motivations that may lie behind,” Hussain said.

[…]

The head of Sweden’s security police, Anders Danielsson, said that “it has been possible to avert a serious terror crime in Denmark through efficient and close cooperation between PET and the (Swedish) security police.”

Five “Swedes” have been arrested for plotting violent revenge against the publisher of the Danish Mohammed cartoons. Four of the suspects were arrested in Denmark and one in Sweden on suspicion of planning a terror attack on the offices of Jyllands-Posten in Copenhagen.

I’ll be posting some news articles shortly, but in the meantime here is a news clip from Swedish TV. Many thanks to Kitman for subtitling this video:

As the West has accepted extensive immigration from Islamic countries, unexpected social and political problems have followed. While rising crime rates, rampant unemployment and a heavy load on our much-appreciated welfare systems are severe problems in itself, a distinct and dramatically more significant problem is the subtle subversion of our free and democratic societies, also known as “Stealth Jihad”.

The retired Islamic scholar Sam Solomon, in this compact book Al-Hijra, The Islamic Doctrine of Immigration, connects the dots and explains why seemingly unrelated incidents are in fact rooted in Islamic tradition and are steps on the path to create a fully Islamized society.

To demonstrate how this functions, Sam Solomon dives into his exhaustive knowledge of Islamic history and law. As with scholars of Islam everywhere, he derives his conclusions from Islamic scripture, the life of Muhammad in particular, and shows how historically immigration has slowly but steadily lead to formerly Jewish or Christian societies submitting to Islam. The primary example in the book is Muhammad’s takeover of Yathrib, today known as Medina, and how the concepts and strategies developed for the conquest of a relatively insignificant Arab city are being duplicated by Islamic leaders worldwide, with the same goal: Expanding Islamic conquest ever further.

The depth of knowledge and connections described in Al-Hijra constitute both a strength and a weakness. Most important is the strength: Sam Solomon uses his Islamic scholarship to reveal the justifications and machinations being applied to undermine and attack the very notion of a secular society. This is important information that everyone involved in these matters deserve to have.

The weakness is that the book frequently becomes hard to follow. Understanding Islamic terms like Darura (necessity), Takweem (empowerment), I’dad (readying) etcetera are important in order to counter the undercurrent of Islamization, yet the denseness of the presentation makes the lines of thought hard to follow for the unprepared. One does well in having some knowledge of Islamic thought before reading Al-Hijra.

That said, this book is indispensable for a very simple reason: It presents information otherwise not available to the uninitiated Westerner, and mercilessly reveals the twisted logic of Islamist activists, their justifications, methods and ultimate goal: a fully Shariah-compliant society. By pointing out the scriptural justifications and inner logic of seemingly benign and unrelated Muslim demands, it provides an invaluable tool for identifying and countering the stealth jihad destabilizing our societies. Dismantling this threat peacefully requires knowledge as provided by Sam Solomon.

Review opinion:

Unique book with invaluable understanding of matters. Well worth tackling despite dense prose.

Rating: 5/6

First up is the book cover: A wooden horse associates directly to the Trojan Horse, the stratagem that according to legend was applied by the Greeks to finally conquer the city of Troy. The use of this archetypical image is sure to evoke emotional responses by many, but it also points to an important fact:

The subversion against our societies is executed by relatively few immigrants. Most immigrants from Islamic countries do not come to the West in order to transform free Western countries into semblances of the autocracies or theocracies they have fled from. They seek better living conditions, employment, a better future — but they do so without the intention to change their religion, and this is where things get complicated.

Retaining faith in Islam and Islamic scholars will lead the immigrants to tacitly support the subversive aims of Islamists who have also come to the West, initially as a relatively small fraction of millions of Islamic immigrants. These Islamic leaders and scholars use the Islamic teachings to destroy confidence in Western democracies, and they are astonishingly effective in achieving that aim.

Explaining how this seemingly irrational development can take place requires some history. This first and foremost means the life and conduct of Muhammad, the perfect example for the pious Muslim even today. The authority of Muhammad is absolute in Islam, be it in form of Quranic commands or the examples of conduct recorded in hadith collections, known in Islam as the ‘Sunna’. Hijra, immigration, was a key element in Muhammad’s takeover of Yathrib, today known as Medina.

Unfortunately, the concept of Hijra is not limited in time or space to 7th century Arabia. The command as given is absolute, and remains an obligation on Muslims. One of many hadith quotes Muhammad for this:

Most readers will be familiar with the spectacle of mass Muslim prayer on the streets of Paris’ 18th Arrondissement. The following video, however, shows the breathtaking scope of the Islamic occupation of certain districts of Paris.

We reported last week about a Muslim schoolboy in Spain who was so traumatized by his teacher’s mention of ham that his parents filed a complaint with the police.

In a moment of sanity that has become all too rare in the West today, the local prosecutor in Spain has summarily thrown out the case. He even went so far as to criticize the abusive nature of the complaint. How long will such a racist Islamophobe be allowed to retain his office?

Tuesday, December 28, 2010

One of the WikiLeaks cables reveals a US embassy report from Syria describing the actions of a Syrian sheikh in fomenting the riots during the Mohammed cartoon crisis in 2006. The sheikh’s name is redacted from the cable’s text, but he is said to be “influential”

In other news, the descendants of John Wilkes Booth are pushing for DNA testing to determine whether President Lincoln’s assassin was in fact the man killed in that barn in Virginia in 1865, or whether it was someone else. Some theorists believe that Booth escaped, fled to the frontier, and lived there for several decades after the assassination.

Commenters are advised to leave their comments at this post (rather than with the news articles) so that they are more easily accessible.

Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. We check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.

As a follow-up to his earlier work on the case against Guramit Singh, Nick has posted additional information about the changes to the laws involved. The portion of the statute used against Mr. Singh was modified — after 9/11! — to add “religiously aggravated harassment” as a type of offense.

An offence is [racially or religiously aggravated] for the purposes of sections 29 to 32 below if—

(a)

at the time of committing the offence, or immediately before or after doing so, the offender demonstrates towards the victim of the offence hostility based on the victim’s membership (or presumed membership) of a [racial or religious group]; or

(b)

the offence is motivated (wholly or partly) by hostility towards members of a [racial or religious group] based on their membership of that group.

(2)

In subsection (1)(a) above—

“membership”, in relation to a [racial or religious group], includes association with members of that group;

“presumed” means presumed by the offender.

(3)

It is immaterial for the purposes of paragraph (a) or (b) of subsection (1) above whether or not the offender’s hostility is also based, to any extent, [on any other factor not mentioned in that paragraph.]

(4)

In this section “racial group” means a group of persons defined by reference to race, colour, nationality (including citizenship) or ethnic or national origins.

[(5)

In this section “religious group” means a group of persons defined by reference to religious belief or lack of religious belief.]

Note that Section 28 sub-section (1) refers to Sections 29-32 of the Act. Section 31 deals with public order offences committed under the legislation cited by the Cambridgeshire Constabulary in connection with Mr. Singh’s arrest:

Our Austrian correspondent ESW sends this report about the breaking news of Al Qaeda’s threats against Copts in Austria.

Fifteen Coptic Christians in Austria on Al Qaeda death list

by ESW

Today the Austrian tabloid ÖSTERREICH reports that a new Al Qaeda spin-off, Al Daula Al Iraqiyah Al Islamiyah (Islamic State of Iraq), has released a list of death threats against more than a hundred Coptic Christian human rights activists worldwide, including fifteen Copts living in Austria, five of whom are Austrian citizens.

William Tadros is one of the persons mentioned in the list. In an interview with ÖSTERREICH, Tadros reports that he informed the Office for the Protection of the Constitution and Terrorism Prevention when he found out that his name was on the death list. “Al Qaeda wants to kill us because of what we are doing for the Christian minority in Egypt.”

FPÖ party leader Heinz-Christian Strache has written a letter to interior minister Maria Fekter asking her “not to remain inactive when Coptic Christians, who trust in our safety, are being threatened. The Ministry of Interior must act before there are victims!”

The new Al Qaeda group claimed responsibility for the massacre in a church in Baghdad in late October, which left more than 50 dead, as well as the recent suicide attack in Stockholm. The Baghdad massacre took place in direct correlation with the Egyptian Copts because they did not comply with a demand made by this Al Qaeda group. These two attacks prove that this group must be taken seriously. International intelligence services have added Al Daula Al Iraqiyah Al Islamiyah to their watch lists.

Monday, December 27, 2010

Housing prices in the UK are expected to continue falling in 2011, with experts predicting that the average price will drop about 2%. Housing is not the only area in which reduced economic activity is expected: retailers expect the January 1 rise in VAT to depress their sales during the coming year.

In other economic news, the Greek government’s austerity budget for 2011 has prompted the communists to urge workers to start “a real war” to “overthrow the regime” and set up “a government of the people” — and also repudiate the country’s debt to the EU and the IMF.

Commenters are advised to leave their comments at this post (rather than with the news articles) so that they are more easily accessible.

Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. We check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.

Yesterday we were honored to be named as one of the winners of Doug Ross’2010 Fabulous 50 Blog Awards. This puts us in some illustrious company, because, as Mr. Ross says, they are “the most prestigious new media awards anywhere. Or at least in the 993 area code.”

Thank you, Mr. Ross!

There’s only one hitch (if it indeed can be called a hitch): our award was for “Best European Blog”.

It makes me a bit nervous every time Gates of Vienna is classified as a “European blog”. It’s not just that our good fortune might irritate the real European blogs. It’s not only the thought that Politically Incorrect, Snaphanen, or Europe News might take out a contract on us.

No, what worries me is that I might have to start acting the part. Must I wear a little beret? Bathe less often? Eat Emmenthaler? Stop pronouncing my r’s? Put diacritical marks over my vowels?

Fie on that!

You’d be surprised at some of the company we’re keeping in the Fabulous 50. Among the other winners are Matt Drudge, George Will, Charles Krauthammer, and — wait for it — George Soros.

We reported last week on the arrest of Guramit Singh, the spokesman for the English Defence League. Mr. Singh is now facing a “hate speech” charge in court.

Nick is a regular reader and commenter here at Gates of Vienna. He dug into the legal background of the case against Mr. Singh, and posted the results at The Frozen North. With Nick’s kind permission, his report is republished below.

If one researches the basic offence which Mr. Singh is charged with, one finds that it did not exist when the Public Order Act 1986 was enacted. At that time, in accordance with Section 5 of the Act, one could be found guilty of using threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour within earshot of someone likely to be caused harassment, alarm or distress thereby. Upon summary conviction, one could receive a fine of up to level 3 on the standard scale.

This changed with the enactment of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994. Section 154 of that Act defined a new offence, that of intentionallycausing harassment, alarm or distress. This was then inserted into the Public Order Act 1986 as Section 4A, and it is this legislation that has been cited by the Cambridgeshire Constabulary in the arrest of Guramit Singh. Note that if one is found guilty of this offence then one is liable to a prison term of up to six months, a fine of up to level 5 on the standard scale, or both.

One finds then that if Mr. Singh had been charged under Section 5 of the Public Order Act 1986 he would have faced a fine of up to £1000. Since he has been charged under Section 4A of the Act, Mr. Singh faces a fine of up to £5000 or up to six months in prison, or both.

Sunday, December 26, 2010

According to Pakistani government officials, the suicide bomber who killed more than forty people on Christmas Day was a woman dressed in a burqa. The jihadess exploded herself in front of a UN food distribution center, in a crowd that consisted mostly of women and children. Police are investigating the crime.

In other news, after a meeting between the Portuguese finance minister and Chinese leaders in Beijing, the Portuguese ambassador to China says that the Chinese will help his country by buying more Portuguese debt. Meanwhile, Sweden is having the coldest December in 110 years.

Thanks to C. Cantoni, DF, El Inglés, Esther, Fjordman, Gaia, Insubria, TV, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.

Commenters are advised to leave their comments at this post (rather than with the news articles) so that they are more easily accessible.

Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. We check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.

When discussing the Islamization of the West, France is usually cited as being the worst-off of the Western democracies. It has an estimated Muslim population of 10%, perhaps as high as 15%, and the demographics of the situation — a very low birthrate among the native French, and a baby boom among the Muslim immigrants — do not bode well for the future of France.

If we expand the definition of “the West” a bit, it becomes necessary to add India and Russia to the list of Most Islamized Western Nations. India has the largest, oldest, and most intractable “Islam problem” of any Western democracy. The Muslim minority in India is over 150 million (13+% of the population) and is growing relative to the Hindu population. India lives under the constant threat of terror attack. Its citizens experience deadly bombings and other forms of violent jihad with mind-numbing regularity.

Russia is a special case. Its Muslim population is estimated at 10% to 12%, and its demographic situation is worse than that of France, so that Russian Islam is expected to grow rapidly. If present trends continue, Muslims will comprise a majority of the Russian military within a couple of decades.

However, as analysts often point out, Islam in Russia is different from virtually anywhere else. The most fanatical Osama-loving terrorists and their sympathizers are confined mainly to Chechnya, Dagestan, and other small republics in the southern Caucasus. To the extent that these ethnicities have migrated to Moscow and other parts of Russia proper, the problem of Islamic terror has spread, but its practitioners are still mainly from those Caucasian ethnic groups.

A large part of the Muslim population in Russia is Tatar. The Tatars are a Mongolian ethnicity, and have been in Russia for almost eight hundred years, since the they first conquered the Eastern Slavs. When Ivan the Great threw off the Tatar yoke two and a half centuries later, the Tatar Muslims became subordinate to the Orthodox Christians of Holy Russia, and have retained that status ever since, except for a brief atheist interregnum between 1917 and 1991.

Western analysts have generally regarded the Tatar brand of Islam as mild and innocuous, especially compared with the virulent versions found in Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and Somalia. Since the Tatars are estimated to number between seven and eight million, or around half of Russia’s Muslim population, this cuts the percentage of “problem” Muslims in half, making the scope of the issue roughly the same as it is in the Netherlands.

Except in the case of the Caucasus, the Legacy Media have consistently downplayed the danger of radical Islam in Russia. An article from April 2007 in The Economist is a case in point. It calls the increase of Russian Islam “a benign growth”, and describes it in glowing terms such as only the MSM can provide. The subhead tells us:

Russia’s fastest-growing religious group is its Muslims. But they are not much like their counterparts in other countries

Below are some further excerpts from the article. I’ve bolded certain names, for reasons that will become apparent later on:

“The only problem with Islamic fundamentalism are the fundamentalsof Islam.”

In the video below, the prominent atheist activist Sam Harris points out that not all religions are the same. He explains exactly why Islamic fundamentalism is inherently dangerous, especially when compared with the forms of fundamentalism that emerge in other religions:

This review of a book written by an Egyptian-German scholar was published last month in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Many thanks to JLH for the translation:

“The Decline of the Islamic World”by Wolfgang Günter Lerch

A startling analysis from the pen of a Muslim scholar

November 17, 2010

Where does the hate of the Islamic world for the West come from? Is it from the false policy of the Americans, the unfortunate Iraq war, the fighting in Afghanistan, or the unsolved Palestine problem?

The German political scientist Hamed Abdel-Samad, himself a Muslim and from Egypt, has an answer which will not make most Muslims happy: In Islam, he sees a declining culture which is, so to speak, striking out blindly before it dies.

But how can you say that? Is Islam not the only religion that is growing, and not just because of demographic developments? For instance, does it not attract many in Africa who do not (any longer) practice other religions? Isn’t it Islam that gives an impression of aggressive strength which makes many people afraid?

In his book The Decline of the Islamic World: A Prognosis, the author comes to a completely different conclusion. The title was a conscious choice. When he first came to Germany, Abdel-Samad read Oswald Spengler’s The Decline of the West. At first, the opinions he had brought from home about the “decadent” West were confirmed in this classic of cultural philosophy. Spengler’s elitist, alabaster-like language was hard to understand, so he put the book aside. When he picked it up again later — intellectually better prepared for it — it became clear to him that Spengler’s analysis applied perfectly to the condition of his own Islamic culture.

Abdel-Samad is following a line of criticism of radical Islam already marked out by the Pakistani dissident Ibn Warraq, now living in the West, and/or Abdelwahhab Meddeb, the Tunisian-French author. All in all, though, he is milder than his predecessors, advocates for an Islam without sharia and jihad.

(Thanks @inti for sending the cartoon and Rodrigo @sin_mordaza for making it)

Slowly Hugo Chavez is building up his Dictatorship. He has been planning ahead all the time.

Lost the Constitutional referendum? He quickly had himself an Enabling Law that allowed him to legislate in 2008 everything but his own reelection by decree, thus voiding what the “people” had voted for. He dealt with his reelection by holding an illegal referendum that would allow him to run in 2012 and forever if necessary, he had the Supreme Court ready to approve it in an another subtle but illegal decision that denies the very essence of our Constitution and democracy.

Then, in the face of the 2007 referendum defeat, he rearranged electoral districts so that he could win the National Assembly even in defeat. It almost worked, except that he did not cheat enough and lost more popularity than he imagined he would in the intervening two years. In the end, he did not manage to obtain the super majority that would have allowed him to have the Assembly approve him any Bill he wanted.

Thus, he made a three step maneuver, one for the present, one for the immediate future and one for a year and a half from now.

For the present, he had the lame duck National Assembly approve a succession of Bills that change the social landscape in a dramatic fashion, from the Banking Bill, to the Science and Technology Bill, to the Telecom Bill, to the Media Bill, to the University Bill, Chavez legislated precisely what the majority that voted against him did not want. It was undemocratic, unfair and much of it illegal.

Saturday, December 25, 2010

Christians all over the world were under attack on Christmas Day, mostly by Muslims. Violent episodes occurred in Nigeria, the Philippines, Iraq, and other countries. And Christians weren’t the only religious groups targeted by Muslim bombs — two houses belonging to Shi’ite Muslims were blown up in Baghdad, presumably by Sunni terrorists.

In other news, in 2010 for the first time ever China has matched the number of space launches by the United States — fifteen. Meanwhile, health authorities in Britain warn that another flu epidemic is about to begin, and will include the notorious swine flu strain.

Thanks to Barry Rubin, C. Cantoni, DF, JD, Nilk, Vlad Tepes, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.

Commenters are advised to leave their comments at this post (rather than with the news articles) so that they are more easily accessible.

Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. We check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.

Friday, December 24, 2010

The news feed is sparse tonight for two reasons: (1) Our webmail has been down for five hours or so, and (2) it’s Christmas.

That last post I wrote was not very Christmassy, so I’ll have to try again in the morning. In the meantime: Merry Christmas, everyone!

A chairman of the Ulema Council in Indonesia says that Christmas decorations put up by Indonesian Christians are “excessive and provocative”, and that Christians need to show more restraint to avoid hurting the feelings of Muslims.

In other news, a DMV in the U.S. Virgin Islands has denied a driver’s license to a Muslim woman who refused to remove her veil for a photo. CAIR is on the case.

Thanks to C. Cantoni, Caroline Glick, Gaia, heroyalwhyness, Insubria, JP, McR, Nilk, SF, Vlad Tepes, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.

Commenters are advised to leave their comments at this post (rather than with the news articles) so that they are more easily accessible.

Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. We check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.

We — the major Western powers, led by the United States — have been officially at war for the last nine years. It is not an all-out war, but there has been plenty of shooting and killing, and we have taken thousands of casualties.

Above all, it has been an expensive war. It’s hard to calculate a cost-benefit ratio for it, given that our objectives are so vague. If we were simply seeking conquest, we could measure success by the amount of territory gained, and say that our victory had cost us $50 million per square mile. Or whatever it actually cost.

Given this metastasis of mission, a pragmatic analysis becomes that much more difficult to carry out. Our overall aim is to avert new terror attacks, and since we can’t tell how many such attacks our overseas contingency operations have actually forestalled, there’s no way to tell how many billions of dollars each non-occurrence has cost us.

And who is the enemy?

We have officially decided that we are making war on “violent extremism”. Yes, that’s right: we aim to kill or capture “violent extremists”.

We can all agree that they’re violent — they are, after all, trying to kill us — but what, precisely, are they “extreme” about?

Do they enjoy extreme sports?

Do they eat extremely hot food?

Are they perhaps extreme hedonists?

When pressed, our leaders occasionally acknowledge that something called “Islam” is involved with all the extremism and violence. Or maybe not: Attorney General Eric Holder, when grilled during a congressional hearing, adamantly refused to say the I-word. However, if enough “Allahu akhbars” fill the air during a murderous attack, a military or national security official may sometimes grudgingly admit that “evil people who have distorted and hijacked the great and peaceful religion of Islam” may have been responsible.

Never before in history has such a powerful nation amassed such incredible firepower and spent such great treasure for such amorphous and poorly-defined goals. No wonder we’re still at war nine years later — and being blown up by the “allies” on whom we have lavished so much attention, training, and cash.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

A few days ago I discussed the fact that Western cultural and political leaders have cut themselves off from complete and accurate information about their own societies. By imposing a priori ideological constraints on information, they have foreclosed the possibility of gaining a true understanding of what is happening within their own populace in the face of Islamization.

The corollary to this fact is that the most crucial part of the current information war is being fought in a semi-clandestine fashion at the lowest levels via horizontally-linked distributed networks. Necessity requires that our most dedicated information warriors bypass official channels, since those channels deny the very premises on which the info-war is fought.

A mirror of this process is now underway in the shooting war in South Asia. The United States, in its dedicated effort to kill “violent extremists”, has developed successful techniques for taking out commanders at the highest levels of the Taliban leadership.

According to the standard doctrinal template applied to counterinsurgency operations, this should have damaged the enemy and dramatically impaired his effectiveness. Unfortunately, “cutting off the head of the snake” has not reduced the Taliban’s offensive capabilities as much as the model would predict. The disappearance of the vertical lines of command has resulted in the emergence of horizontal command structures. Although these groups lack a centralized command, they are able to mount simultaneous attacks over a wide area.

Before I suggest why this might be happening, take a look at this article from AKI:

Last week’s rally in Paris resulted in a manifesto of purpose crafted by the alliance of groups that took part in the event. The document has been published in several languages at Riposte Laïque. The English version is below.

The Appeal of Paris — December 18th, 2010December 23 2010

The ‘Islamization’ of Europe Conference, which took place in Paris, on the 18th December 2010, is a founding act. For the first time, orators coming from the whole of Europe shared one same platform to denounce the Islamic conquest at work on our continent. At the end of the Conference, the thirty-two parties, organizations, associations, websites and news blogs which supported this initiative agreed, beyond their different political orientations, on a common manifesto:

We rise up against the aggressive proselytism of Islam, against the occupation of public space by muslim prayers, against the financing of mosques with public funds, against the development of the halal food market, against the fate reserved by Islam to women, as opposed to our principle of equality between women and men and, in general, against any advance of Islam on the soil of Europe,

Faced with the ‘Islamization’ of Europe, we reaffirm our unfailing attachment to our multimillenial civilization, its values and traditions,

We invite all the peoples of Europe and the world to preserve the future of our children and grand-children, by rising up against any attempt to replace the laws of their countries — a legacy of their history and a guarantee of social balance — by rules imported from abroad and incompatible with them,

We invite them to defend the European citizens’ freedom of speech, the free debate and free vote on this subject matter,

Thursday, December 23, 2010

The California flood-and-mudslide stories were the big news for me today. I spent a couple of hours browsing news articles and videos, but I forgot to save any of the links. Check Fox or CNN to see some amazing photos and footage.

Parcel bombs exploded at two embassies in Rome today. Anarchists (or possibly Greens) are alleged to be responsible for the exploding packages, which injured two people at the Swiss and Chilean embassies.

In other news, the Chinese have taken exception to criticism by the Vatican of the state-sponsored Chinese Catholic Church, calling such interference “imprudent” and “dangerous”. At the same time China says that it is willing to protect its investment in Europe by bailing out bankrupt EU nations if the current crisis causes more failures.

Thanks to C. Cantoni, DF, Esther, Insubria, JD, LL, McR, Salome, Steen, TV, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.

Commenters are advised to leave their comments at this post (rather than with the news articles) so that they are more easily accessible.

Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. We check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.

Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff really ought to be downright grateful to Veronika Dolna, the editor of the leftist Viennese magazine NEWS. Since Dolna covertly attended one of the 39-year old’s seminars in November, 2009, and subsequently entered a complaint of “hate crime” against the daughter of a former diplomat, for her everything has been on an upward trend. Berlin, Washington, Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Jerusalem, Paris — since then, she has been in demand everywhere as a speaker. And to cap it all off, now a multi-page report on the self-declared feminist in the Austrian women’s magazine, WIENERIN. May it continue like this in 2011!

From our point of view, of course, Elisabeth’s heightened media profile has been a real boost for the cause. It has catapulted a well-informed critic of sharia into a prominent position as a spokeswoman for the movement, where she can utilize her eloquence in two languages to bring our message to a wider audience.

Not quite the result that NEWS expected. Now Veronika Dolna gets to learn the meaning of the phrase “unintended consequences”. Can anybody tell us what that is in German?

Previous posts about the hate speech case against Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff:

We posted earlier this month about the Australian Human Rights Commission and its fight against “cyber-racism” — that is, content posted on the internet that offends members of minority groups.

As a follow-up, we then reported on an enquiry made by our New Zealand correspondent Aucklander with the Australian Human Rights Commission concerning its policies on cyber-sexism and cyber-homophobia.

In the intervening weeks since then, Aucklander has exchanged a series of emails with human rights officers in Sydney. Concerning his encounter with Australian bureaucracy, Aucklander has this to say:

I think I have a usable answer at last from the Australian HRC, via two replies. My basic concern was whether the rules will only apply to real racism or also to criticism of religion. They seem to have answered that ‘no, it’s still ok to criticise religion’ — or at least that’s how I read it. But I understand your point about the UN moving towards making blasphemy illegal worldwide. A definite threat to be noted.

You’ll see that they didn’t even try to answer my last question:

5.

I realise that this is a fairly new area for the HRC, and also that actual threats against any people should not be legal. So how does the HRC view an incitement to hit disobedient wives, as contained in one religious doctrine? Why is that legal?

No response, so it seems that inciting domestic violence in a religious text is OK with the Australian HRC. Perhaps one of the Aussie GoV members could pursue this further. I might take it up here in New Zealand.

To recap the original post, this is the initial email Aucklander sent to the Australian Human Rights Commission:

I am interested in how you deal with cyber-sexism. Since you are actively against cyber-racism, why are you not also be dealing with cyber-sexism and cyber-homophobia? As a feminist and supporter of homosexual friends I am deeply offended by many websites, including religious ideologies that downgrade women and threaten homosexuals.

While I am opposed to racism (in fact there is absolutely no scientific proof that different ‘races’ exist), there has been a tendency lately to claim that opposition to certain religious doctrines is ‘racist’. It is clearly not, as religion is a doctrine and not a genetic trait.

Please give me your definition of ‘race’ and of ‘racism’, and assure me that religious doctrines are absolutely not considered racial characteristics, so that if someone opposes a religious doctrine or practice online, they will not be committing ‘race crimes’ in your books.

If you are wondering why I am asking this question from New Zealand: I have gay friends in Australia and am concerned that under your laws, if they dared to comment online on anti-gay religious doctrines, they could be deemed offensive and ‘racist’! The same could apply to women opposing sexist religious doctrines publically online.

As a secularist, I am also interested to know how you ensure that enforcing people’s human rights regarding religion does not interfere with others’ rights to secularism and atheism? If it is someone’s right to state that non-believers are somehow inferior (easily found in many religious texts and frequently stated publically, online, by believers), would an atheist have the same right to call a believer inferior? If not, why not?

I refer to your email enquiry sent on 3 December 2010, which raises concerns about “cyber-sexism”, “cyber-homophobia” and religious doctrines.

I note that you say that you are offended by many websites, including religious ideologies that downgrade women and threaten homosexuals. You raise various questions relating to the racial discrimination and the relationship between racial discrimination and religious doctrines. Please be aware that in terms of your questions I am only able to advise you on our jurisdiction.

The Australian Human Rights Commission has a specific jurisdiction when it comes to the issues it can deal with. Its role is to consider claims of discrimination on the basis of a person’s race, sex, age or disability within specific areas of public life. The Commission can also consider claims of human rights breaches relating to one of the international covenants scheduled to the Australian Human Rights Commission Act 1986, which can only be made against the Australian government. We can also look at claims of alleged discrimination on the basis of a person’s religion, sexual preference, criminal record, political opinion, social origin or trade union activity in employment.

Religious discrimination and Sexual preference discrimination

Under the Australian Human Rights Commission Act 1986 (AHRCA) discrimination on the grounds of sexual preference and religious beliefs are only covered in the area of employment. Further information about freedom of religion or belief can be found on our website at www.humanrights.gov.au/human_rights/religion/index.html.

The Commission has put out some publications that may be relevant to your concerns. You can access this information at the following link:

The Swedish security police (Säpo) recently released a report on “violence-approving Islamist extremism”, which is the literal English translation of the phrase used by the authors of the report. Våldsbejakande means supportive of violence, but not violent in itself — talk about not treading on any Muslim toes!

The idea that “violence-approving” jihadis could be in any meaningful way distinct from “violent” jihadis is a quintessentially Swedish way of parsing reality. It’s designed to lull the Swedish mind into its accustomed complacency — which was so rudely disturbed by an exploding man in downtown Stockholm on December 11th, not long after the report was issued.

Was Taimour Abdulwahab Al-Abdaly actually violent? Or only an approver of violence? We’ll have to let the Jesuitical minds at Säpo sort that one out.

A comprehensive critique of the Säpo report by Reinhard of ICLA was recently published at Politiskt Inkorrekt. Many thanks to Cavatus for the translation:

Säpo’s (the Swedish security police) report on violent Islamist extremism in Sweden [pdf] is in many ways meritorious, but suffers from many serious deficiencies: it does not deal with the Islamism that is not supportive of violence, and it does not mention the radical Islamists’ ideology in its discussion. In the following I intend to summarize the report, emphasize the most relevant aspects and state something about its deficiencies. Since the report is available on the Internet, I will avoid page references; the quotations are easy to find by searching in the PDF-file.

Säpo establishes that there are a number of networks in Sweden that actively spread radical (what Säpo calls “violence-accepting”) Islamic ideology. The ideology is treated as uniform by Säpo (it is shared by “most of them”). The ideology has very specific targets: part of their propaganda is against “foreign troops in Muslim countries”, part is against “regimes that are regarded by the networks as corrupt and don’t uphold the interpretation of Islam that the networks regard as the only truth”, and part is also against caricaturists.

Here we at once see that radical Islamism is rooted in the religion of Islam. Radical Islamism’s attitude towards Islam’s orthodoxy — whether it diverges from established Islamic theology and jurisprudence — is something that Säpo is interested in, and after having read the report I am unfortunately forced to admit that they are not capable of doing that analysis. Säpo protects itself in an elegant way against possible accusations of taking sides in the intra-Islamic debate — the wording “the interpretations of Islam that the networks regard as the only truth” protects Säpo against unserious criticism. But at the same time it makes them unable to understand fully the incentives and the prime movers of the suicide bomber.

The question to ask is the following: why is it a problem for radical Islamists (or more easily expressed, Jihadists) that there are non-Muslim troops in Muslim countries? Because Jihad, which means holy war, both in the sense of invading non-Muslim countries and imposing Sharia law (which is not the same thing as converting all people into Islam) — the offensive Jihad — and defending Muslim countries against attacks — the defensive Jihad — considers only whether the countries to be defended are Muslim. According to Sharia, (Islam’s jurisprudence; Jihad is a part of Sharia) it does not matter that Afghanistan and Iraq were governed by tyrants that tormented their own inhabitants and, in the case of Saddam Hussein, it does not matter that he initiated aggression against his neighbours. It does not matter that the Taliban oppressed the people — it was still not legitimate for non-Muslim countries to invade Afghanistan, since the doctrine of Jihad expressly opposes this. The war that is waged today by the Western Powers is usually seen a humanitarian intervention, but this concept completely lacks meaning for Muslims who take the doctrine of Jihad seriously. Non-Muslims do not have the right to invade Muslim countries, no matter how badly the latter behave, while Muslims has an imperative, collective obligation to invade non-Muslim countries. This is what is behind the violent Islamic extremists’ focus on non-Muslim invasions of Muslim countries — they know what Sharia says about the matter, and apply Sharia, Islamic law (which is by definition not radical or extreme; Sharia is Islam’s orthopraxy, and if Sharia is radical, it means that Islam in itself is radical).